Kerala Police, the airline and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation
are all inquiring into the comedy of errors that dogged the Air India
Express flight Friday from Abu Dhabi to Kochi, resulting in a fracas
between passengers and security personnel and a 'hijack' alert.
When
the flight to Kochi was diverted to Thiruvananthapuram because of bad
weather and the crew refused to fly it back to Kochi on the ground that
their duty hours were over, it touched a raw nerve among the passengers,
who were already delayed by over seven hours at Abu Dhabi.
The
announcement that they would be taken to Kochi, 220 km away from
Thiruvananthapuram, by road only caused frayed tempers among passengers
to boil over. They sought to prevent the pilot from deboarding, and she
sounded a hijack alert, putting air traffic control authorities across
the country in a tizzy.
There have been complaints from
hapless travellers ever since Malayalis started making a beeline to the
oil-rich Middle-East countries since mid-1970s.
When it came to
air fares and services on board, many low-budget travellers have
complained that they were treated shoddily, and often fleeced, by
international airlines as well as by India's national carrier.
Air
India Express, the budget airline of the national carrier, operates
with 21 aircraft. Nearly 70 percent of its flights operate from the
three Kerala airports, and 80 percent of its cabin crew is from Kerala
when flights operate to the state or to the Mangalore airport in
adjacent Karnataka.
Change can be effected in the situation, says
a leading economist at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS) here.
"These non-resident Keralites (NRKs) should use their combined might and
totally ignore Air India. It's not proper for passengers to act in such
an unbecoming manner, whatever the compulsions," he said commenting on
Friday's 'hijack' alert incident.
"No one forced the NRKs to
travel Air India. There are so many airlines operating. If the NRKs can
use their combined might, they will have Air India begging for custom,"
said S. Irudayarajan of CDS, who has been studying the diaspora.
A
recent study by the CDS here showed that there are currently more than
2.2 million Keralites in the Middle East countries. And the foreign
currency that flows into the state from this region is estimated at
Rs.60,000 crore annually.
There are now 11 international airlines
operating flights between Kerala and the Middle East, and Jet Airways
too flies to many Middle East destinations from the three Kerala
airports.
An aviation expert, on condition of anonymity, told
IANS that if things must change, Air India officials must introspect on
the nature of services they offer.
"The biggest advantage that
Air India has is that when it comes to air fares, it beats other
airlines. It is always priced lowest, even at peak season. Moreover, Air
India Express flights offer free meals," the aviation expert said.
"Air
India should have additional operating crew (pilots and co-pilots) in
the state, at least from October to December, when bad weather is more
likely to occur unexpectedly, as happened Friday," the aviation expert
said.
Meanwhile, State Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan
said the six passengers who have been asked to report to police
officials investigating into Friday's 'hijack' episode would not be
harassed in any way.
"When we get a complaint, we need to look
into it; we can hardly tear and throw a complaint away. Let the probe go
on, we offer assurances that the passengers will not be harassed. Once
the investigation is over, the government will take a decision on what
needs to be done. There is no reason for the passengers to fear
harassment," Radhakrishnan told reporters Sunday.
Chief Minister
Oommen Chandy recently announced that the state government would launch
its own airline, Air Kerala, by April next year. It remains to be seen
whether that airline will operate that much more efficiently, drawing
lessons from the experiences of the national carrier.
Air India Express faces Malayali wrath
